Medium, both super and natural

Who’s that girl? (350-picture Slideshow)

Tuesday, 29 March 2005

In many of the promotional interviews for the new series of "Doctor Who", the potential audience has been told that this version is more domestic than the classic series and will deal with the lead characters’ emotional lives more than it did in the past. Yet, I can remember in "Survival", the very last serial, broadcast sixteen years ago, seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy going into a little corner shop, the proprietors of which were Hale and Pace no less, to buy cat food! Life doesn’t get more domesticated than that.

To say the original series was weak in dealing with emotional issues, in order to promote the new series as being strong in this area, simply isn’t fair. Sometimes the old show was good at it, sometimes it wasn’t, and the new series will probably be the same. No one can forget Sophie Aldred’s Ace coming to terms with the poor relationship she’d had with her mother, when, during "The Curse of Fenric", she admits the truth to herself and cries out, "I love you, Mum", almost hoping she might hear.

The truth is that companions haven’t always run away screaming and to say so does a disservice, especially, to the writers, as well as the actresses portraying the Doctor’s assistants. Elisabeth Sladen’s Sarah Jane Smith must have been a pretty gutsy lady to climb the scaffolding of the rocket ship to try and escape her captors in "Genesis of the Daleks". The fear of being recaptured, the possibility of falling to her death would have been uppermost in her mind and enough to make anyone nervous at the very least.

Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler, in the opening story "Rose", is understandably just as scared as any of her predecessors would have been when she is cornered in the shop’s basement by the awakening Autons. But, by the end of the episode, she plucks up enough courage, literally, to swing into action to help the Doctor out of the tight spot he’s gotten himself into. So, my contention is that the arc of character development is the same as it always was, though maybe with less depth this time round, possibly because of the shorter running time?

Friday, 4 March 2005

Just finished watching "Swarm", the third episode of "New Captain Scarlet" to be transmitted. When Destiny and her squad of Angels shoot down an enemy aircraft on a collision course with Skybase, a swarm of metal-eating wasp-like insects are unleashed and attack her interceptor. Scarlet rescues her but she unwittingly returns to Spectrum HQ with one of the little critters in her clothing!

The creatures cocoon Lt. Green when she goes off-duty, in a scene reminiscent of the one missing from the original "Alien" movie. They tap into her brain to discover the logistics of Skybase and avoid the possibility of detection that would arise through connection to the computer system. Scarlet and Destiny become trapped together in a lift for over an hour as the swarm begin to take over. After escaping their confinement, they discover, when Destiny accidently knocks over a jug, that water is the Achilles heel of the insects.

The episode is excellently realised despite the absense of Captain Black so early in the run when it would’ve been better, after the opening two-part story, to firmly establish him as Scarlet’s nemesis. That error is undoubtedly down to the carelessness of the broadcasters and not the producers. ITV have a long history of not broadcasting episodes of Gerry Anderson series in the order in which they were intended!

Everyone is impossibly beautiful with an emphasis on the curves of the female characters very noticeable especially when Destiny is either in her cockpit or climbing down ladders which, no doubt, makes it sexist but is in the nature of these things in a financially competitive market.

All five Angels now launch upon danger, instead of only three of the five in the original series, which suggests they are all on duty all of the time which isn’t logical! Lt. Green is seen going off-duty and sleeping in this episode, and we meet her stand-in, so when do the Angels get any time-out or sleep? If they do, who replaces them?!! That would mean too many characters and is obviously a concept contrivance. Great fun though and I’m looking forward to the next episode, whichever one they show!?!

A Brief History

I consider myself fortunate to have watched the science fiction television series Doctor Who from the very beginning. I prefer the programme’s early years from which my favourite story is the Patrick Troughton serial Fury From The Deep. I am also an admirer of Gerry Anderson’s puppet shows and successive live-action series, from Fireball XL5 to Space Precinct and beyond! My pick is an episode of UFO entitled The Psychobombs. I am currently addicted to US supernatural drama Medium while, in film, I’ve always adored the gothic horror of Hammer. On first hearing Roxy Music’s Virginia Plain, music, both popular and classical, became the major force in my life, so much so that I gained a BA in the subject from Nottingham University and an M.Mus in composition from Goldsmiths, University of London. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 In C Minor - The Resurrection and Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring are favoured scores. Aladdin Sane by David Bowie is probably my favourite rock album. Singles of choice are Mott The Hoople’s All The Young Dudes, Steve Harley And Cockney Rebel’s Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) and No More Heroes by The Stranglers.